Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT)

CRAFT works similarly to CRA but treats your loved one as the patient. The end goal of CRAFT is to help your loved one become someone who’s able to support your sobriety. This happens in 7 steps. 

1. Giving Support Resources: Before your significant other can help you they need to find the proper headspace. Addiction tends to hurt loved ones the most, leaving them feeling betrayed, resentful, or indignant. Therapists connect them to resources for loved ones of people with addiction like Al-Anon (find a meeting) or reading materials. All of these help the person see you and your addicted self as two different people. They learn that it’s possible and helpful to detest your addiction while loving you. 
2. Starting Self-Care: Once your loved one has the support they need, they can use it to help them start taking care of themselves properly again. This includes hobbies, eating well, and learning stress management skills.
3. Getting the History: Once your loved one has found the proper headspace and life-balance skills, they can begin learning how to help you. This starts with detailing the history of your drug and alcohol abuse with the therapist. When you began using, when it got worse, and everything that brought them to therapy. The goal is for the therapist to understand what their goals are for therapy and to see the scope of your addiction. 
4. Functional Analysis: A functional analysis is a way to examine (or analyze) the role (or function) that drugs or alcohol play in your life. What do you believe the benefits are of substances? Or what consequences do you believe they help you avoid? Once the therapist understands the function that substances serve, he/she can start replacing them with other things that have the same effect. 
5. Learning Triggers: Triggers are thoughts, emotions, interactions, or places that triggered your addiction in the past. Using your history and functional analysis, the therapist can help your loved one see what led to past relapses. They will also go over ways to help you cope with or avoid those things in the future. 
6. Communication Skills: Part of CRAFT is using active listening (listening to hear not respond) to strengthen your relationship. 
7. Training: The therapist begins showing your significant other effective ways to incentivize you towards sober activities, hobbies, friendships, support groups, or jobs that align with your values. The goal is to connect you with things that you find meaningful and require sobriety. Finally, they will learn healthy ways to discourage pro-addiction related choices. 

As a result, your loved one will be able to either encourage you to seek treatment or sustain your sobriety. In addition to finding the headspace they need to help you, they will learn communication skills, how to keep you motivated, and how to encourage you to enjoy your sober lifestyle.